Proms
First Night of the Proms, Hyde, BBCSO, Stasevska review - levitational ecstasiesSaturday, 31 July 2021
Did absence from Albert’s colosseum from early September 2019 until now and a roof-raising finale hoodwink many of us into thinking Dalia Stasevska’s interpretation of Sibelius’s Second Symphony among the greats? Having listened to it again on the... Read more... |
BBC Proms live online: Aurora Orchestra, Collon review - down memory laneFriday, 11 September 2020
The Aurora Orchestra’s trademark expertise in playing symphonies from memory arguably reached new heights this week as they tackled Beethoven’s Seventh, first in performances with a live audience and then, yesterday, in an empty Royal Albert Hall... Read more... |
BBC Proms live online: Viennese Night review - sophisticated pleasuresTuesday, 01 September 2020
Viennese operetta is like that other great Central European treat, goulash. It comes in many forms. In Vienna it’s coffeehouse comfort food; in Slovenia they add bacon for a smoky tang. And in the marketplaces of Transylvania it comes in bubbling... Read more... |
BBC Proms live online: Jonathan Scott review - the organ as orchestraMonday, 31 August 2020
“Did you bring any Bach?” was not a question to ask of Jonathan Scott before he launched into his jaw-dropping Prom on the Royal Albert Hall's 1871 Henry Willis organ – the largest in the world at the time. augmented in its 2002-4 overhaul to 9,999... Read more... |
BBC Proms live online: BBC Singers, BBCSO, Oramo review – threnodies to an empty hallSaturday, 29 August 2020
So the bubble of reactionary brouhaha over the Last Night of the Proms quickly burst: there can be no argument about singing “Land of Hope and Glory” or “Rule, Britannia!” when they’re to be presented in their original Proms forms (Elgar’s Pomp and... Read more... |
Rapture captured: instrumentalists and singers at the 2019 BBC PromsFriday, 28 August 2020
As two weeks of livestreamed Proms begin tonight, we just want to be there in the Royal Albert Hall. The exuberance of our lead picture tells one story of a Prom which had to be witnessed live to be believed: the annual visit of the National Youth... Read more... |
Antics before an audience: conductors at the 2019 BBC PromsWednesday, 26 August 2020
What a difference a year makes. Live Proms will be back from Friday, but the very essence of the world's biggest music festival will be missing: the audience, and especially the Prommers whose rapt attention while standing has taken so many visiting... Read more... |
Classical music/Opera direct to home 21 - from large-scale memories to chamber-music streamingFriday, 17 July 2020
It seems a shame that large-scale organisations can’t be more flexible when government guidelines shift. True, the arts couldn’t jump at two days’ notice when outdoor events were licensed by our ever-vacillating government. The BBC Proms could have... Read more... |
Last Night of the Proms, Barton, BBCSO, Oramo review – woke not brokeSunday, 15 September 2019
The BBC put social and ethnic diversity at the heart of this Last Night programme. The concert opened with a new work, by Daniel Kidane, called Woke, and the first half was dominated by the music of black and female composers. In the second half,... Read more... |
Prom 72/3: Aurora Orchestra, Collon review – Berlioz not quite lost in showbizFriday, 13 September 2019
For a few seconds last night, the Royal Albert Hall turned into London’s biggest – and cheesiest – disco. At the end of the Ball movement in the Aurora Orchestra’s dramatised version of the Symphonie Fantastique, Berlioz’s tipsily lurching waltz... Read more... |
Prom 71: Dunedin Consort, Butt review – Bach to the drawing-board pleaseThursday, 12 September 2019
Blame it on the box set. The four Bach Orchestral Suites fit neatly together as a recording project. They used to fill out the four sides of a double LP back in the early stages of the baroque revival. Completists and collectors could rejoice then,... Read more... |
Prom 69: Stikhina, Czech Philharmonic, Bychkov – dark textures and powerful passionsWednesday, 11 September 2019
Semyon Bychkov was a surprising choice to take over the Czech Philharmonic last year, a conductor with few obvious connections to Czech music. But on the strength of this visit to the Proms, they make a good team. Bychkov communicates fluently with... Read more... |
